Approximate numbers and round numbers are replete in the biblical texts.
This is just another example. Even a cubit itself is an approximate
number representing the length from elbow to hand. It could be twelve
inches or 18 to 20 if you go out to the middle finger. Imprecise
numbers are just part of the cultural charm. Live with it. In
Revelation, 144,000 (60 squared times 40) will be saved from the twelve
tribes of Israel. Exactly 12,000 from each tribe. Sounds like
arbitrariness in the extreme if it's a literal head count.

Yes, pi is 3 to a single significant figure, But that doesn't cover the
fact that it is measurements that are given, so that a value for pi is
inferred. Suggesting one measurement of a flared rim and another without
the flare requires gross incompetence in measuring. If we try to make
all the statements strictly true, they made ~5% error in some
measurement. That they could be more exact is seen in I Samuel 17:4.
Elsewhere there are other obvious problems. What I was trying to point
out is the futility of trying to make every biblical utterance
scientifically or mathematically true. It can't be done!
Dave

Anyone who's been on this list very long knows that I'm not a concordist
& don't feel required to try to show that the scientific views of the
biblical writers were in accord with our modern scientific picture of
the world. The sky isn't a solid dome. Nevertheless, pi IS 3 to one
significant figure & even the strictest inerrantist &/or concordist
ought to be content with that. The only consistent alternative is to
demand that the biblical writer not say that the circumference of the
molten sea was 30 cubits, or 31.4 cubits, or even 31.4159 cubits but
that it be expressed in terms of an infinite series for pi or something
like that. And such a demand would be, I suggest, absurd - which shows
the absurdity of the whole enterprise.